My sole mode of personal transportation is my bicycle. I've never driven a car and I'm quite proud of it.
This blog is my place to rant and rave about cycling issues as I see them.

This is not a place for critics of integrated cycling - that conversation is over - segregation has no future - studies show it is not a safe or useful strategy, nor is it a healthy philosophy.

Tuesday, 24 September 2013

GTA V, Cycling and Ethics.

As an avid gamer, I went out and bought GTA V the day it appeared on game store shelves. In my opinion, this is the best of the series so far - and it features cycling (yay!), so I have an excuse to do a blog post about it. So let's get the cycling bit out of the way before moving on to the more juicy stuff.

For those of us who might want to see how far the game can be pushed into being a cycling simulation, the game suffers from the same major problem that the game's cars suffer from - twitchy steering. It takes a while to get used to. Also, there are no gears, but it's not really a problem - going up hills is just slower. Riding itself, which involves pressing a single button over and over again like a maniac (to simulate pedaling) can get tiring.

In terms of bikes, you get the choice of a couple of variations on mountain bikes, a few racing bikes, or a cruiser. So far I haven't seen a touring bike (shame!) or a BMX. Oh well, you can't have everything.

In terms of places to ride, only a few of the game's side missions involve cycling. But there are lots of places to cycle. The game takes place in 'Los Santos' - GTA's version of Los Angeles and the surrounding countryside, so you get cityscapes, mountains and rural areas to cycle in. The mountain biking potential would seem to be a good chance to enjoy cycling in the game - there are a lot of areas that would be fun for the mountain bike enthusiast. The problem is, I'm not sure that there are bikes available at the top of good mountain bike routes - you'd probably have to cycle out to the good places.

One area of the game that really does focus on cycling is the triathlon side missions. These are fun and have good replay value - but there are not all that many of them.

All-in-all, the game gives us cycling that's just a bit more than an afterthought (and given the fact that there's no other cycling game out there I guess that's pretty good). Cycling can be done in the game, but it's a bit tedious and not all that rewarding. But it can be fun for a while, and hey, at least it's there.

I've also been interested to see how the usual videogame blame game develops after the game's release. It is, after all, the latest iteration of the series that is considered by anti-gaming activists 'Public Enemy #1'. So far, the standard straw man arguments are appearing - boiled down, they amount to "The ability to murder virtual prostitutes is WROWWWWNNNNGG and will turn 10 year-olds into violent psychopaths". The fact that the game's prostitutes are game code and not real, the fact that the game is rated 'M', meaning that parents are warned that it might not be appropriate for kids, and the fact that real life crime statistics have dropped like a stone since videogaming became a popular form of entertainment, apparently count for nothing.

Contrary to the way videogame detractors see these games, I have a bit of a different perspective, in that I've actually played every GTA game since GTA II: Vice City. So I know all about how the game approaches ethical questions, and it's a bit more complex than the critics seem willing to admit.

For instance, I think GTA V does a great job of
allowing players to experiment with how they would handle certain
ethical situations. Sure, players 'can' engage in all sorts of virtual immoral acts, up to and including mass murder. But do they? In my experience seeing people play the answer is most often "No". In
my case, what I notice is that even given the ability to kill without
consequence in a game where nothing is real, I choose NOT to do so unless severely provoked. I'm
NOT going around killing lots of people for fun. In fact, I try to avoid doing
so unless someone does me harm. I may drive way too fast, but I'm not purposefully ploughing down
pedestrians on the sidewalk. I think many players do the same - acting in ways that would be seen as
dangerous in the real world, but not actively trying to do harm to the game's innocent civilians.

So I think maybe the game's detractors are looking at this the wrong way - instead of looking
at what's possible and criticizing it, they should be looking at what's
really happening with players in the game - I think they might be
surprised at how often we bring our real life ethics into these games,
and at how invincible our personal ethics are when assailed by a virtual
world filled with the potential for mayhem in a consequence-free
environment.

And when we are forced to participate in
scenes where our characters do bad things - GTA V's infamous torture scene, for
example - the game makes it pretty clear that being unethical is stupid.
Even Trevor, the game's complete psycho, understands this and explains
at length to the corrupt FIB (FBI) officer who is forcing him to perform the torture. Far from being
a game that plumbs the vicious depths of an amoral virtual reality, GTA
V has a strong moral core. While you 'can' and sometimes 'must' make
your characters do things that are not nice, the game helps players to
understand WHY unethical behavior is counter-productive.

I have now reached the end of the game. The major characters go through some moral turmoil and the game's finale involves an interesting ethical choice. I'm not going to spoil the ending in case anyone reading this is a gamer, but I was happy to see a game present the player with a lot more than the usual "These are obviously really bad people, now kill them". While the GTA series is often accused of 'Mother Night' syndrome - i.e. blurring the line between satirizing bigotry and engaging in it, the latest version gives players a lot more to think about than the average shooter.

About Me

I'm from Sheffield, Yorkshire. I lived my first 22 years in England. Between 1984 and 1986, I cycled 10,000 miles throughout Western Europe. I met my American wife in Austria in 1988 and moved to the USA in 1989. I've worked as a shop assistant, a draughtsman, an artist, a bartender, a picture framer, a writer and a genealogical researcher. My daughter and I are probably "The Silver Spring Cyclists" - the only people in town who commute on the bike every day through fair weather or foul: rain, snow, hot or cold. No matter what, we're out on our bikes.

Quotes on Cycling and Society

"When a cow follows the herd, it ends up at a slaughterhouse. When cyclists use bike facilities, they end up at an intersection, often with the same unhappy result as the cow. Use the road - it's safer!" - me again.

"Vehicular cycling techniques have not been tried and found difficult. They have been presumed difficult and not tried." - P.M. Summer, paraphrasing G.K. Chesterton

"If American bicycle advocacy leaders had championed the civil rights movement, the 'Dream' would have been reserved seating in the back of the bus." - Jack R. Taylor

"The task of the 'protected' bicycle facility is to hide collision participants from each other right up to the point of impact." - John Schubert

"Position on the road is by far the most important influence that a cyclist has over his safety. Indeed, the loss of this ability to influence the actions of others is one reason why road-side cycle tracks and shared footways increase danger at junctions. Many cyclists fail to position themselves properly because of their fear of traffic, yet it is this very fear that puts them most at risk. Encouraging unsafe behaviour by directing cyclists to more hazardous positions does nobodyany favours." - John Franklin

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so" - Mark Twain